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List:       kde-promo
Subject:    Re: [kde-promo] Negative feedback about KDE non-openmindednessingerman
From:       Andreas Pour <pour () mieterra ! com>
Date:       2002-02-22 8:45:38
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Tink wrote:
> 
> At 05:14 -0600 02/21/02, Andreas Pour wrote in Re: [kde-promo]
> Negative feedback about KDE non-openmin:
> 
> Adreas:
> > So, my (and
> > most others who have gotten burned) policy is not to work with people
> > unless they have convinced me of their commitment and that working with
> > that person will yield a net gain for the project.
> 
> That doesn't mean KDE should stop trying. I think it's rather
> dangerous to put PR or KDE's marketing solely on one person. If, God
> forbid, something happened to you, sick, accident, disagreement,
> there would be no-one to take over. Seems to me like living on the
> edge and not something you want.

Hi,

I agree, and it would be really great if more people get involved. 
There are so many things to do, that I lack the time or interest or
skills for.  And people are of course to do things on their own.

My point was, that if something (like maintaining the League website)
does require my attention and is not something someone can do on their
own, I am happy to help and provide assistance, but only if I can be
reasonably confident that something good comes out of it.  This is just
an issue of maximizing my contributions and managing my time.

> Most people I know, and I'm not different, think only _they_ can do
> the job right. If so many people quit while working on a project,
> maybe it's a good thing to start asking why that happens.

A lot of volunteers have good intentions, but when it becomes apparent
the time commitment which is involved, they choose to focus on other
things in life, such as children, spouse, career, movies, whatever.  The
problem with a virtual volunteer project is it takes virtually no effort
to say you want to do something (unlike in real life - say you want to
volunteer for Red Cross, you have to get in a car and go somewhere, fill
out an application, maybe have some interviews, etc., all things that
demonstrate commitment, but even those organizations have problems with
volunteers being trained and then leaving, so they spend time on
screening for this).

For activities that require no or minimal training, such as attending a
KDE booth at a show by someone who uses KDE regularly, it's easy to
accept all volunteers (and of course showing up at the show itself is a
sign of commitment).  For other activities, such as doing public work on
behalf of an organization (i.e., maintaing the League website, for
instance), a lot of training (i.e., learning the "culture" of the
organization, which has developed over a course of interactions with the
applicable constituents) is necessary, as the public activities of the
organization need to reflect this culture.  Transmitting this culture,
esp. via email, is extremely time-intensive.  I know b/c I have been
doing this with the PR firm :-).  A lot of management in communication,
and email - or other written communication, particularly non-interactive
communication where each round of clarification can take days - is a
particularly inefficient way to do it (if that is your exclusive means,
as it typically ends up being).

> Philippe:
> > > When I look at it, what I see is lack the name of a responsible for stuff.
> > > KDE has a too informal organization for the moment. We need to clearly
> > > define a list of contacts for organization stuff.
> 
> Andreas:
> > Are you volunteering?  Because it is easy to point out these problems;
> > but quite another matter to find someone who does it.
> 
> > Which is another reason I like to avoid these discussions:  I can spend
> > hours responding to emails and in the end nothing has been accomplished
> > except some archives got bigger.  I hope you prove me wrong :-).
> 
> From what I know Philippe contributes what he can, we _all_
> contribute what we can, I sure you know that.

Sure, if you are Philippe volunteered, I would be very happy, as both of
you have demonstrated you are committed to the project.  But we were
talking about some anonymous person whom I don't know.

> I keep seeing you
> pointing this out. I hope this doesn't mean you feel that we should
> not ask questions or critize the way things are done within KDE
> Leaque or KDE e.V. The way to come to an improvement or a solution is
> through constructive criticism and an open mind and ear.

Yes, and I thought I was responding to that, by pointing out the problem
is not enough volunteers, that we need more volunteers, how in my
opinion one goes about screening volunteers, and how in my discussing
this over and over again is not productive use of time.  I think all of
these problems are obvious, but maybe they are not, as they do seem to
come up frequently.

Now if I count how many hours I have spent this week, both in public and
private emails, addressing the issue of "why isn't the League doing
more", I can easily rack up over 20 hours because, as I mentioned, email
is not so efficient.  That's about 1.5 weeks of League work for me.  So
you can see how I get frustrated by this criticism -- just by responding
to it, even less gets done, unless of course someone volunteers as a
result, which, well, has not happened yet :-).

That seems to me to address the problems fairly.
 
> I'm sure Chris or Eirik can answer questions as well. Yes I know they
> have busy jobs, but with accepting a position on a board they know
> that there will be a time that they will have to answer questions of
> the people they say they represent.
> I have to agree with Phillipe, a list with actions would solve these
> discussions and would free you from these obvious unwanted emails.

I don't think it would, it would just make the actions the subjects of
the emails.  But if you want to maintain a list like that, and take
responsibility for answering the inquiries, I am happy to send you a
list of things I am working on.  For this week, please note, "Responding
to KDE League criticisms" ;-).

Ciao,

Dre
 
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